It’s well known that MacArthur was an incorrigible gloryhound, a man infatuated with the vertical pronoun.
While it’s preposterous to think the president reads works of biography or military history, his proclaimed affinity for the so-called American Caesar makes perfect sense: Egomaniacs tend to admire other egomaniacs. “General MacArthur,” Trump said, “is spinning in his grave when he sees what we do.”
Most recently, he made headlines by calling James Mattis, his own former Secretary of Defense, “the world’s most overrated general.” By contrast, during the 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly declared that Douglas MacArthur was his “favorite general.” At rallies, Trump would invoke MacArthur’s name almost as though he were in direct communication with his ghost. In that dubious department, few generals in modern history come close to Douglas MacArthur.įrom time to time, President Donald Trump (he who pleaded the bone spurs defense to avoid service in Vietnam) has rather audaciously taken it upon himself to grade various American military figures, past and present. This Veteran’s Day, as we remember those men and women we’ve sent into battle, we should also take a moment to remember the fateful decisions, sometimes tragically bad ones, our commanders made that put our fighting forces directly and often needlessly in harm’s way.
